- Joined
- Jul 24, 2001
- Posts
- 19,061
People over here put "rare" in almost every vg-related auction (or music tech-related ones for that matter), even if it's just a 2600 Pac Man or a game that came out two months ago.
Let's see how long this will continue.
There are a lot of parallels between old video games and old electronic music gear like synthesizers and drum machines. Before the digital revolution of the early 80s, synths used to be analog. They sounded great but many of them had a lot of drawbacks, they went out of tune depending on the surrounding temperature, most of them had no memories to store sounds in and they also were difficult to maintain and cost a fortune. Then Yamaha came up with the DX7 based on FM synthesis in 1983 and everyone and their uncle bought one because it never went out of tune, had tons of new and exciting sounds, was programmable, relatively light-weight and comparably inexpensive. Soon studios all over the world started to throw out their old analog gear in favor of the new digital stuff, back then you could buy a large analog modular or various compact synths for next to nothing.
Then the techno/electronic dance craze of the mid/late 80s and early 90s led to a rediscovery of old analog gear which let prices rise to insanse levels. In the 80s, you could buy a Roland TB-303 for 150 bucks, today you can be lucky if you can find one in crappy condition for less than 2500, and that's only one example. The scene is full of hipsters, collectors, "retro" freaks, etc. Sounds familiar, eh.
Similar things happened with video games. In the late 80s/early 90s when the first 3D consoles hit the market, people started to unload their old 2D stuff in droves in order to buy a PlayStation, Saturn or 3DO. Many old games that go for big money these days could be had for mere pennies, then something happened and all of a sudden, the old stuff became hip and sought-after, and there we are now.
This may be just a phase but I guess things won't change dramatically over the next decades, if at all. Video games are a relatively new thing, it all started in the early 70s. At the moment, we are in a phase where people that used to be kids in those days buy stuff mostly for nostalgic reasons and that will eventually wear off I guess but the "serious" collectors will remain and so will the top prices paid for certain rare stuff while prices for not-so-rare items will return to a more sane level. That's my prediction... which may be totally wrong so don't quote me on it.
